The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards

Text, Context, and Application

Steven M. Studebaker, Robert W. Caldwell Iii

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317013051
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Christianisme

While Jonathan Edwards scholars have increasingly recognized the central role that the Trinity played in his thought, no work brings together Edwards' central texts on the Trinity and interprets and applies them to contemporary theological issues. This book reveals how the doctrine of the Trinity transformed Edwards' ministry and how the Trinity can inform current evangelical thought, life, and ministry. Key primary texts, interpretation, and application of Edwards' trinitarian theology are all presented here. Part one features Edwards' chief trinitarian writings and provides an in-depth analysis on his doctrine. Part two sets Edwards' trinitarianism in historical context. Part three demonstrates how Edwards employed the Trinity in his sermons, in spiritual formation, and in other areas of doctrine.

PART 1
Texts and Doctrine

Chapter 1
Discourse on the Trinity by Jonathan Edwards

Introduction

In early 1730 Edwards compiled numerous trinitarian Miscellanies entries he had penned over the recent decade and formed them into a semi-coherent essay.1 The exact occasion of this work is unknown to us, but its result was the following essay entitled Discourse on the Trinity, the title given by the editors of the Yale edition of Edwards’s works. The Discourse represents Edwards’s first lengthy work summarizing his trinitarian theology. It was not published until long after his death in 1903 by George Park Fisher.2 We have used Fisher’s text as the basis for this chapter and have kept editorial changes to a minimum. Minor changes include: the modernization of spelling, standardizing Scripture references, and spelling-out abbreviated words in the original. We also dropped several paragraphs at the end of the Discourse, which Edwards later appended to the original essay.3 We would like to extend our gratitude to Nikola Caric and Zach Bowden who formatted and edited this chapter and the next. We also extend thanks to Joshua Williams for help with Edwards’s use of Hebrew.

Edwards’s Discourse on the Trinity

’Tis common when speaking of the divine happiness to say that God is infinitely happy in the enjoyment of himself, in perfectly beholding and infinitely loving, and rejoicing in, his own essence and perfections, and accordingly it must be supposed that God perpetually and eternally has a most perfect idea of himself, as it were an exact image and representation of himself ever before him and in actual view, and from hence arises a most pure and perfect act or energy in the Godhead, which is the divine love, complacence and joy.

Though we cannot conceive of the manner of the divine understanding, yet if it be understanding or anything that can be any way signified by that word of ours, it is by idea. Though the divine nature be vastly different from that of created spirits, yet our souls are made in the image of God, we have understanding and will, idea and love as God hath, and the difference is only in the perfection of degree and manner. The perfection of the manner will indeed infer this that there is no distinction to be made in God between power and habit and act, and with respect to God’s understanding that there are no such distinctions to be admitted as in ours between perception or idea, and reasoning and judgment (excepting what the will has to do in judgment), but that the whole of the divine understanding or wisdom consists in the mere perception or unvaried presence of his infinitely perfect idea, and with respect to the other faculty as it is in God there are no distinctions to be admitted of faculty, habit, and act, between will, inclination, and love, but that it is all one simple act. But the divine perfection will not infer [i.e., imply] that his understanding is not by idea and that there is not indeed such a thing as inclination and love in God.

That in John, “God is love,”4 shows that there are more persons than one in the deity, for it shows love to be essential and necessary to the deity so that his nature consists in it, and this supposes that there is an eternal and necessary object, because all love respects another that is the beloved. By love here the Apostle certainly means something beside that which is commonly called self-love: that is very improperly called love and is a thing of an exceeding diverse nature from the affection or virtue of love the Apostle is speaking of.

The sum of the divine understanding and wisdom consists in his having a perfect idea of himself, he being indeed the all: the all-comprehending being—he that is, and there is none else. So the sum of his inclination, love, and joy is his love to and delight in himself. God’s love to himself, and complacency and delight in himself—they are not to be distinguished, they are the very same thing in God; which will easily be allowed, love in man being scarcely distinguishable from the complacence he has in any idea: if there be any difference it is merely modal, and circumstantial.

The knowledge or view which God has of himself must necessarily be conceived to be something distinct from His mere direct existence. There must be something that answers to our reflection. The reflection as we reflect on our own minds carries something of imperfection in it. However, if God beholds himself so as thence to have delight and joy in himself he must become his own object. There must be a duplicity. There is God and the idea of God, if it be proper to call a conception of that that is purely spiritual an idea.

And I do suppose the deity to be truly and properly repeated by God’s thus having an idea of Himself and that this idea of God is truly God,5 to all intents and purposes, and that by this means the Godhead is really generated and repeated.

1. God’s idea of himself is absolutely perfect and therefore is an express and perfect image of him, exactly like him in every respect; there is nothing in the pattern but what is in the representation—substance, life, power nor anything else, and that in a most absolute perfection of similitude, otherwise it is not a perfect idea. But that which is the express, perfect image of God and in every respect like him is God to all intents and purposes, because there is nothing wanting: there is nothing in the deity that renders it the deity but what has something exactly answering it in this image, which will therefore also render that the deity.

2. But this will more clearly appear if we consider the nature of spiritual ideas or ideas of things purely spiritual, these that we call ideas of reflection, such as our ideas of thought, love, fear, etc. If we diligently attend to them we shall find they are repetitions of these very things either more fully or faintly, or else they are only ideas of some external circumstances that attend them, with a supposition of something like what we have in our minds, that is, attended with like circumstances. Thus ’tis easy to perceive that if we have an idea of thought ’tis only a repetition of the same thought with the attention of the mind to that repetition. So if we think of love either of our [illegible] love or of the love of others that we have not, we either so frame things in our imagination that we have for a moment a love to that thing or to something we make to represent it and stand for it, or we excite for a moment the love that we have to something else and suppose something like it there, or we only have an idea of the name with some of the concomitants and effects and suppose something unseen that [is] used to be signified by that name. And such kind of ideas very commonly serve us, though they are not indeed real ideas of the thing itself. But we have learned by experience and it has become habitual to us to govern our thoughts, judgment and actions about it as though we conceived of the thing itself. But if a person has truly and properly an idea of any act of love, of fear or anger or any other act or motion of the mind, things must be so ordered and framed in his mind that he must for that moment have something of a consciousness of the same motions either to the same thing, or to something else that is made to represent it in the mind, or towards something else that is pro re nata thither referred and as it were transposed, and this consciousness of the same motions, with a design to represent the other by them, is the idea itself we have of them, and if it be perfectly clear and full it will be in all respects the very same act of mind of which it is the idea, with this only difference that the being of the latter is to represent the former.

If a man could have an absolutely perfect idea of all that passed in his mind, all the series of ideas and exercises in every respect perfect as to order, degree, circumstance etc. for any particular space of time past, suppose the last hour, he would really to all intents and purpose be over again what he was that last hour. And if it were possible for a man by reflection perfectly to contemplate all that is in his own mind in an hour, as it is and at the same time that it is there in its first and direct existence; if a man, that is, had a perfect reflex or contemplative idea of every thought at the same moment or moments that that thought was and of every exercise at and during the same time that that exercise was, and so through a whole hour, a man would really be two during that time, he would be indeed double, he would be twice at once. The idea he has of himself would be himself again.

Note, by having a reflex or contemplative idea of what passes in our own minds I don’t mean consciousness only. There is a great difference between a man’s having a view of himself, reflex or contemplative idea of himself so as to delight in his own beauty or excellency, and a mere direct consciousness. Or if we mean by consciousness of what is in our own minds anything besides the mere simple existence in our minds of what is there, it is nothing but a power by reflection to view or contemplate what passes.

But the foregoing position, about a man’s being twofold or twice at once, is most evident by what has been said of the nature of spiritual ideas, for every thing that a man is in that hour he is twice fully and perfectly. For all the ideas or thoughts that he has are twice perfectly and every judgment made and every exercise of inclination or affection, every act of the mind.

Therefore as God with perfect clearness, fullness and strength, understands himself, views his own essence (in which there is no distinction of substance and act but which is wholly substance and wholly act), that idea which God hath of himself is absolutely himself. This representation of the divine nature and essence is the divine nature and essence again: so that by God’s thinking of the deity must certainly be generated. Hereby there is another person begotten, there is another infinite eternal almighty and most holy and the same God, the very same divine nature.

And this person is the second person in the Trinity, the only begotten and dearly beloved Son of God; he is the eternal, necessary, perfect, substantial and personal idea which God hath of himself; and that it is so seems to me to be abundantly confirmed by the word of God.

1. Nothing can more agree with the account the Scripture gives us of the Son of God, his being in the form of God and his express and perfect image and representation: 2 Cor. 4:4, “lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them.” Phil. 2:6, “Who, being in the form of God.” Col. 1:15, “Who is the image of the invisible God.” Heb. 1:3, “Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person.” In the original it is χαρακττὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως ἀυτοῦ which denotes one person as like another as the impression on the wax is to the engraving on the seal. (Hurrion, “of Christ Crucified,” vol. 1, p. 189, 190); and what can more agree with this that I suppose, that the Son of God is the divine idea of Himself. What [can] be more properly called the image of a thing than the idea. The end of other images is to beget an idea of the things they represent in us, but the idea is the most immediate representation, and seems therefore to be a more primary sort of image, and we know of no other spiritual images nor images of spiritual things but ideas. An idea of a thing seems more properly to be called an image or representation of that thing than any distinct being can be. However exactly one being—suppose one human body—be like another, yet I think one is not in the most proper sense the image of the other but more properly in the image of the other. Adam did not beget a son that was his image properly, but in his image; but the Son of God—he is not only in the image of the Father, but He is the image itself in the most proper sense. The design of an idea is to represent, and the very being of an idea consists in similitude and representation: if it don’t actually represent to the beholder, it ceases to be. And the being of it is immediately dependent on its pattern: its reference to that ceasing, it ceases to be its idea.

That Christ is this most immediate representation of the Godhead, viz. the idea of God, is in my apprehension confirmed by John 12:45, “He that seeth me seeth him that sent me,” and John 14:7–9, “If ye had known me ye should have known my Father also and from henceforth ye know him and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord show us the Father and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not seen me Philip. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father and how sayest thou Show us the Father?” See also John 15:22–24. Seeing the perfect idea of a thing is to all intents and purposes the same as seeing the thing: it is not only equivalent to the seeing of it but it is the seeing it: for there is no other seeing but having the idea. Now by seeing a perfect idea, so far as we see it, we have it. But it can’t be said of anything else that in the seeing of it we see another, strictly speaking, except it be the very idea of the other.

2. This well agrees with what the Scriptures teach us ever was God’s love to and delight in his Son. For the idea of God is that image of God that is the object of God’s eternal and infinite love and in which he hath perfect joy and happiness. God undoubtedly infinitely loves and delights in himself and is infinitely happy in the understanding and view of His own glorious essence: this is commonly said. The same the Scripture teaches us concerning that image of God that is his Son. The Son of God—he is the true David or beloved. John 3:35 and 5:20. “The Father loveth the Son.” So it was declared at Christ’s baptism and transfiguration, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. So the Father calls him his elect in whom his soul delighteth. The infinite happiness of the Father consists in the enjoyment of His Son: Prov. 8:30, “I was daily his delight” i.e. before the world was. It seems to me most probable that God has his infinite happiness but one way, and that the infinite joy he has in his own idea and that which he has in his Son are but one and the same.

3. Christ is called the face of God, Exod. 33:14: the word in the original signifies face, looks, form or appearance. Now what can be so properly and fitly called so with respect to God as God’s own perfect idea of himself whereby he has every moment a view of His own essence: this idea is that face of God which God sees as a man sees h...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 Texts and Doctrine
• Chapter 1 Discourse on the Trinity by Jonathan Edwards
• Chapter 2 Chapter Three from Treatise on Grace by Jonathan Edwards
• Chapter 3 The Trinity Unveiled: Jonathan Edwards on the Infinite Fullness of the Immanent Trinity
• Chapter 4 The Trinity Revealed: God's Trinitarian Glory Shines Forth Ad Extra
• Part 2 Historical Context
• Chapter 5 Edwards's Trinitarian Theology and the Historic Trinitarian Tradition
• Chapter 6 Edwards's Trinitarian Theology and Its Eighteenth-Century Context
• Part 3 Pastoral Application
• Chapter 7 The Trinity in the Pulpit: How Edwards Incorporated the Trinity in His Preaching
• Chapter 8 The Trinity and Christian Formation: How Edwards Applied the Trinity to the Christian Life
• Chapter 9 The Trinity and Creation: How the Trinity Shaped Edwards's Doctrine of Creation
• Chapter 10 The Trinity and the End: How the Trinity Transformed Edwards's Vision of Heaven
• Bibliography
• Index